


Someone New

by wannnabesuper



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Barista!Remus, M/M, literally no other characters are named, writer!Sirius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-18 03:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14203944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wannnabesuper/pseuds/wannnabesuper
Summary: Remus is a barista tired of hearing his favorite customer (and secret crush) constantly wax lyrical about his never-ending stream of new loves.





	Someone New

“Did you see her eyeliner?”

Remus sighed, mentally bracing himself for the inevitable onslaught of dreamy sighs from his favorite customer.

“I wasn’t really looking,” he replied, topping up Sirius’s coffee without being asked. As much as Remus loved the other man’s company – looked forward to it, really, wouldn’t like to do a shift at the coffee house without it – he could do without Sirius’s daily crushes.

“Oh, it was perfect,” Sirius gushed, staring out the window at his latest True Love. “Anyone who can do liquid eyeliner that beautifully really has their life together.”

“I didn’t realize putting on eyeliner was such a broadly applicable life skill,” Remus said drily. “Anyway, how do you know it was liquid?”

“She just seems like the liquid liner type.”

“That makes absolutely no sense.”

“She’s so put together! I bet she never wears mismatched socks.”

“What’s so bad about mismatched socks?” Remus asked. His own socks that day were, if he recalled correctly, one Star Wars sock and one Christmas sock. Somehow when he was a teenager it had become a Thing among his friends and family to gift him gaily patterned socks, but his busy work and class schedules meant that he was now in his mid-20s and hadn’t worn matching socks since high school.

“Nothing, on the right kind of person,” Sirius conceded, by now familiar with Remus’s somewhat ridiculous sock situation. In fact, it had contributed to their first meeting: Sirius had accidentally tipped his chair over backwards and come face-to-ankle with a concerned Remus, who very much didn’t want to have to deal with a dead customer on his first shift.

“So, perfect eyeliner and matching socks?” The pair had been quasi-friends for a little over a year, only ever meeting in the cafe, but Remus knew Sirius well enough to expect no new topics until he’d gushed sufficiently about his latest infatuation.

“She seems like the kind of woman who’s never opened a door in her life.”

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment?” Remus, working class from birth and now bordering on impoverished as he tried to balance work and university, had a very low opinion of people who were too rich to be competent at basic tasks.

“Not because she can’t,” Sirius elaborated. “Because people just…want to hold doors open for her.”

“I expect her hair always looks good in the rain, too,” Remus said glumly. His own hair, kept somewhat long because barbershops cost money, was probably frizzing in the steam from the espresso machine. His beanie, the independent cafe’s answer to Health and Safety hairnet requirements, did little to help matters.

“That’s not exactly difficult, though, is it?” Effortlessly beautiful Sirius evidently put very little care into his hair, which was somehow still always glossy and smooth despite reaching halfway down his back. Remus had  once seen him throw his hair into a 10-second bun that looked magazine-perfect and almost kicked him out of the shop in frustration.

They continued, one enthusiastically and the other reluctantly, to list the superlative qualities of the woman who had breezed in, ordered a flat white in a travel mug she had produced from a bag that looked too thin to hold it, and left with Sirius’s heart. Sirius jotted down notes occasionally, filling an ostentatiously impractical leather-bound journal with his perfect calligraphy.

Sirius was a writer, Remus knew, and independently wealthy enough to essentially live at the cafe. He claimed that people-watching was the best way to be inspired, and that he was incapable of getting anything done if left unsupervised in his flat. Remus staunchly didn’t believe that much more writing got done in the cafe, as Sirius was always perched on a stool by the counter, filling all of Remus’s spare moments – and any number of busy ones – with conversation. They had met fifteen months ago, and Remus had spent fourteen and a half months hopelessly pining.

At first, it had been the beautiful hair, the perfect features, the rakish smile. Then came the preposterous devotion to the punk rock aesthetic that diametrically opposed the gooey look elicited by babies, animals, and old married couples; the unashamed claiming of his pansexuality; and the absolute inability to pass up a pun. Remus, quiet, somewhat plain, and unavoidably swotty, was glad for any snippet of conversation Sirius threw his way.

Unexpectedly, Sirius had not gotten bored of Remus. There was no one else in the cafe he spoke to with such frequency, and Remus had been informed that before he started working at the shop, Sirius had only ever sat at one of the tables by the window. Their tentative friendship bloomed on a foundation of sarcastic remarks, free coffee top-ups, and the occasional proof-reading of short stories or research papers. Despite not attending the university whose cafe he haunted, Sirius was a decent hand at catching grammatical mistakes.

The real moment Remus knew that Sirius considered them friends, though, was the first time Sirius told him about a crush. It had of course been devastating due to Remus’s own infatuation, but he tried to content himself with the confidence Sirius was showing in him.

The first crush – that Remus heard about, anyway – was a fleeting, day-long adoration of a fair-haired muscular man who had clearly come from the gym to unashamedly order himself the biggest, sweetest drink on the menu. Sirius had loved his complete disregard of toxic masculine standards and his willingness to treat himself when he felt deserving. The muscles had also received their share of admiration.

Remus despaired over the idea of Sirius dating this man for a whole two days, until the middle of his next shift when Sirius fell abruptly in love with a dark-skinned gangly woman with an electric blue mohawk.

This was the pattern; nearly every day Sirius found someone new to adore and rhapsodize over, staying utterly smitten until the next person caught his eye. In all the declarations of devotion, Remus never heard mention of the same person twice, and had eventually resigned himself to the fact that Sirius just wasn’t the dating type. Not that it would be easy to date someone so vocally flighty without an immense amount of trust.

“Have you found out about that research fellowship yet?” Sirius asked, apparently done talking about his newest sweetheart.

(They had decided her name was something just slightly uncommon, like Alicia or Margaret – never Maggie – and she was studying fashion like her distant but much-adored mother, though her true passion was the baking vlog she and her freshman-roommate-turned-best-friend had started together)

Relieved at the change of topic, Remus laughed at how eager Sirius was to hear the results of his meddling. Remus knew he wasn’t going to qualify for the highly competitive fellowship, which included a six-month trip through three continents to assist in a study on the intersection of species conservation and ecotourism. He had mentioned it, as a sort of casual pipe dream, and Sirius had pestered him into applying; he’d even written one of the character references.

“The application deadline was only last week, and I’m sure they’ve a load of applicants,” he replied. “The know-by date isn’t for another month or so.”

“I’ll miss you while you’re gone,” Sirius informed him. As a firm believer in the power of positive thought, he had taken to acting like the fellowship had already been awarded to his favorite barista. “No one else properly appreciates how much I appreciate others.”

“You mean your best friends are sick of hearing you talk about a new person every day?” Remus teased.

“I can hardly be blamed for how delightfully interesting and varied the local population is,” Sirius said haughtily. "If anything, I should be getting sympathy. My poor queer heart can't take all this beauty."

"I hear that," Remus muttered, feeling personally attacked by how cute Sirius looked even in the throes of his dramatics. 

* * *

 

Five weeks (and 28 new love interests) later, Remus burst into the cafe ten minutes before the start of his shift. It was the earliest he had been able to get away from the meeting that was the whole reason for his excitement. As expected, Sirius was settling in by the counter, by now well-accustomed to matching Remus’s schedule.

“Oh, you didn’t have to get all dressed up for me,” Sirius drawled, taking in the secondhand suit that was the nicest thing Remus owned. Too excited to spare a thought for the idea of Sirius taking any kind of interest in his clothing, Remus grabbed the shorter man’s shoulders.

“I got it,” he panted, having been unable to stop himself from practically running to the shop from the bus stop.

“You got…” Sirius’s eyes widened and he grabbed Remus’s shoulders right back. “You got the fellowship!”

“I got the fellowship!” Remus was on such an adrenaline high he unthinkingly kissed Sirius on both cheeks, not noticing how pink the other man turned at the gesture. “You magnificent, obnoxious thing, pestering me into applying. And I got in!”

“Remus, this is incredible,” Sirius told him, voice getting softer. He unexpectedly pulled the brunette into a hug, and Remus unashamedly took this second delightful blessing the universe was offering him. Sirius fit against him rather well, and seemed disinclined to break the embrace. A delicate cough from Remus’s manager brought them both back to reality.

“I take it I’ll be needing a new barista?” she asked archly. Detangling himself from Sirius, Remus nodded and hoped his now-reddened face could be attributed to his hurry to enter the shop.

“Yeah, I’ve got the dates written out,” he told her. “I’ll get you my proper written notice tomorrow.”

“Oh, don’t think you’re quitting,” she teased. “As soon as you’re back from this merry little jaunt I’ll be wanting my fastest barista back behind the counter.”

"Yeah, you won't be free of us that easily, so don't even try," Sirius chimed in, and Remus grinned.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he promised.

* * *

 

The two months between his acceptance and departure were a busy blur, and it wasn’t until Remus’s last shift at the cafe that the full implication of leaving hit him.

“I guess this is it for awhile,” he said glumly. Sirius had insisted on buying him a drink after his shift – had been trying to for about a week, in fact – and the pair had retreated to a booth in the back corner of the shop. Remus thought it was a bit late for coffee, but hadn’t wanted to gamble that Sirius had been properly asking him out to a pub. They’d never run into each other outside of the cafe, and Sirius had smiled wryly but not corrected Remus’s assumption that his offer was for a coffee rather than anything else.

“You could always sneak me into your suitcase,” Sirius suggested, but his smile was a bit off. He had been down all week, and Remus was beginning to worry but wasn’t sure how to bring it up.

“But then who will I send all my post cards to?”

“You’re going to send me post cards?” Sirius brightened.

“Well, no, because I don’t have your address.”

“Remus.”

“Yes?”

“You could ASK for my address,” Sirius teased, already scribbling on a sheet of his lovely leather notebook.

“Oh, don’t tear out a page,” Remus tried to protest, but Sirius had already done so.

“Address, email, snapchat, Instagram, cell number, and, I can’t believe we don’t even have this, Facebook name,” he listed, pointing at each one in turn. “Now if I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume you’ve been eaten by a shark and spend the rest of my days writing sternly worded letters to anyone remotely responsible.”

“I think I’m much more likely to get bitten by something venomous,” Remus said absently, unable to stop the ridiculous smile brought on by the fact that Sirius so clearly wanted to stay in touch.

“That’s a much worse anecdote,” Sirius protested. “I strictly forbid you to be bitten by anything  _other_ than a shark.”

“What if I meet a nice bloke and he asks very politely?”

“Still no,” Sirius insisted. “He’s probably a vampire, and I refuse to be deprived of you during daylight hours.”

Much later than he had intended to be home, and rather later than his strict pre-departure schedule really allowed, Remus still couldn’t stop smiling. Warm from the lingering goodbye hug, he friended, followed, and messaged Sirius on every platform he’d been given. He went to sleep with his apparently now-permanent smile fixed on his face; Sirius had replied back to all of them almost immediately, and his latest text simply read “I’ll be waiting by the post box.” 

* * *

 

Three continents, eight countries, twenty-seven planes, fourteen boats, an unknown number and variety of land vehicles, and no more than five nights running in the same bed over the course of the six-month fellowship meant very sporadic wifi. Still, Remus connected every chance he got, downloading messages from Sirius and hoarding them against the exciting chaos that was his new normal. He found himself prioritizing communication with Sirius over everyone else back in England, much to the distress of his homebody mother (who thought leaving Wales had been quite far enough for her beloved son) and the delighted teasing of his best friend (who had long been convinced that Remus and Sirius were destined to be together).

Remus was guaranteed at least one visual pun (Instagram), a daily selfie with commentary (Snapchat), some kind of meme (Facebook), and Sirius’s description of his latest love (email) every time he got online. The rest of the research team liked to tease Remus about his devotion to taking pictures with his terrible phone camera, but Sirius never voiced anything but delight at his replies. They had even exchanged some actual mail; Remus sent the occasional post card and Sirius had once managed to time a care package of obnoxiously English snacks to arrive in South Africa while Remus was there. The only bit Remus could do without, as usual, was the constant commentary on all the qualities other people possessed that meant Sirius would never fall for someone as dull as his former barista.

Despite every plan Remus had ever made to suffer in silence and enjoy the friendship he and Sirius were cultivating, everything came spilling out after a terrible day a little over five months in to the fellowship. It had been an incredible adventure, but Remus was _tired_. The short time frame and constant travel meant he was forever trying to contort his lanky frame into too-small spaces to catch some sleep in transit; hot showers and familiar foods were a distant memory; the incredible things they got to see were always being balanced out – sometimes overbalanced – by the horrific destruction and habitat contamination humans carelessly caused wherever they went; his best friend had gotten engaged while he was away, highlighting just how much he was missing back home; and the end of the fellowship was looming large, signaling a return to regular life and the looming uncertainty of the job market post-graduation.

Talking to Sirius should have been a bright spot; they were six time zones apart but had happened to be online at the same time,  _and_ Remus had a strong enough signal to voice call. Unfortunately, Remus hadn’t wanted to drag down the mood with his complaints and had asked Sirius to tell him about his day. Which meant they were very shortly discussing yet another person who had caught Sirius’s eye.

Glaring at the Costa Rican sunset, Remus interrupted.

“Can we please not talk about this?”

“About what?” Sirius was clearly fighting sleep, it being the wee hours of the morning in Britain.

“About this latest  _love_ of yours,” Remus said, appalled to hear the bitterness in his own voice but unable to summon the energy to stop himself. “I mean, don’t you ever get sick of this revolving door of affection?”

“What do you mean?” Remus hated how small Sirius's voice was. It took the bite right out of him.

“I just don’t understand how you fall in love so quickly, and so often,” he explained softly.

“That’s just…how I am?” Sirius tried. He sounded frustrated.

“Sirius-“

“No, let me explain.”

“Go ahead,” Remus encouraged after a long pause, and Sirius huffed a tiny laugh.

“I’m trying to figure out how to say it so it doesn’t sound terrible,” he confessed. “I think I have to just go with ‘short attention span,’ though.”

“Short attention span,” Remus deadpanned.

“People are amazing,” Sirius defended himself. “I don’t know how everyone isn’t constantly falling in love with new people. They’re just… People are incredible.”

“So you’re just in love with, what, hundreds of people at a time?”

“Don’t be absurd. I fall out of love just as easily as I fall in it. Probably easier.”

“Now I get what you mean by short attention span,” Remus snarked.

“That really is about it,” Sirius agreed. “People are amazing, but they just don’t hold my interest. There’s always something I dislike more than I love whatever I love about them.”

“It hardly seems fair to call it love, then”

“No, you don’t get it. I’m a writer. I have to fall in love with all of these people, so I can turn them into characters that I love, and write about them.”

“HAVE to fall in love, do you?”

“It’s a job requirement,” Sirius said sagely.

“I should count myself lucky you don’t apply the same rules to friendships, or I’d be right out,” Remus joked weakly.

“No, the rules don’t apply to you at all.” Sirius sounded on the verge of sleep, but Remus couldn’t bring himself to hang up first. He shifted, leaning on the banister of the rooftop patio of his hostel. The view of the sunset really was beautiful.

“I’m glad our friendship is safe,” he murmured.

“That’s not what I meant,” Sirius protested. “The rules don’t apply to you, because even though I fell in love just as fast as normal, I haven’t fallen out of love with you at all.” 

* * *

 

Sirius hated his new cafe. It was the best of the variety he had sampled, but still terrible. Unwilling to go back to his old regular, where every corner held some memory of Remus, he had been sampling new places all over town and was beginning to think he might hate cafes. Maybe it was time to try writing somewhere else, like a park.

Sirius looked out the window, contemplating the nearest park he could think of. It was pouring rain outside.

It had been almost three months since he’d last heard from Remus. The phone had gone silent after his disastrous exhaustion-fueled admission, and he’d received nothing from any of their many streams of communication. After a week, he had accepted the rejection and blocked Remus everywhere he could; he’d even spitefully flagged Remus’s email address as spam, to be deleted immediately. The pettiness didn’t make him feel any better.

He knew Remus was back in the country, having forgotten to delete the calendar reminder of the man’s flight home. He’d had vague plans of surprising him at the airport, maybe with flowers but probably just with a hot chocolate and a ride home. Remus had never shown any indication of romantic interest (unless you counted the thousands of tiny potential signs Sirius had to force himself not to dissect and obsess over), and Sirius had learned to be content with what he had. Of course his stupid, sleep-deprived brain had gone and ruined it.

The little bell over the door jingled, making Sirius look up. It was yet another thing he hated about this place; it was too quiet, except for the moments when it was far too loud. The person who had come in was absolutely soaked from the downpour outside, his hunched stature doing little to diminish his impressive height.

At Sirius’s old shop, someone would’ve offered him a towel from the back. Here, they just passive-aggressively put out a ‘Wet Floor’ sign. The tall man had wiped his feet as best he could on the doormat, but still apologized as he tracked water up to the counter. Sirius’s fight-or-flight response went into overdrive as the man ordered in a voice he recognized.

“Could I just have a small hot chocolate?” he asked politely, and Sirius debated hiding under the table. The shop was too small; Remus would undoubtedly see him when he turned around. Even with the rain, Sirius considered just making a break for it, but given his luck today figured he’d just get hit by a bus or something.

As expected, Remus saw him as soon as he turned to look for a seat, mug of hot chocolate in his hand. His eyes widened and only sheer reflex kept the mug from smashing to the ground; as it was, most of the contents spilled over Remus’s hands.

“Shit!” he yelled, holding the cup away from him in a vain attempt to spare his legs from the spill. The lackluster employees watched, unimpressed, but Sirius was out of his seat and halfway to Remus before his brain caught up with his body. They stayed like that for a frozen moment, Sirius with one hand outstretched, Remus staring at him and awkwardly holding the now mostly-empty mug.

One of the employees moved the ‘Wet Floor’ sign over to the spill.

“Sirius,” Remus started tentatively, and Sirius resolutely sat back down, refusing to make eye contact. He heard rather than saw Remus deposit the mug back on the counter and come over to his table.

“That seat’s taken,” he lied baldly, but Remus sat down anyway.

“You changed cafes.”

“This one has a better atmosphere.” Sirius’s cold statement was somewhat undercut by one of the employees slurping the now-abandoned hot chocolate.

“I’ve been looking for you since I got back. I couldn’t get ahold of you.”

“Maybe you should take a hint. I certainly did.”

“Sirius, I never meant to-“

“Hang up on me and then ignore me for a week after I told you I loved you?” he snapped. Remus had the gall to look upset.

“I tried contacting you. You’d blocked me on everything.”

“Yeah,” Sirius said, getting angrier. “Because you hung up on me and ignored me for a week after I told you I loved you.”

“I dropped my phone off a seven-story building,” Remus protested.

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Sirius shrilled. “You were so upset by what I said that you _threw your phone off a building_?

“I said dropped,” Remus corrected, pathologically incapable of letting a semantical issue slide. “I was leaning on the railing and I was so surprised by what you said that I dropped my phone.”

“You dropped your phone,” Sirius verified, tone flattening out.

“Yes.”

“Off a seven-story building.”

“It rather exploded on the sidewalk.”

“And you couldn’t find any other way of contacting me for a whole week.”

“I was a bit panicked,” Remus explained. “I spent the first day or so just having a bit of an internal breakdown. Then we were traveling and working, and I didn’t get a chance to borrow a laptop until almost a week later. And you’d blocked me on Facebook and didn’t reply to any of my emails.”

“So naturally your conclusion was to, what, stalk me all over town?”

“To be fair, it’s hardly stalking if I didn’t know where you were,” the irrepressible swot pointed out. “But I thought there might have been some confusion and wanted to be sure where we stood before I gave up entirely.”

“Gave up what?” Sirius asked suspiciously. Remus still looked far too pleased and not at all nervous, which was exceedingly unfair.

“On the chance that you still love me back,” he said calmly, as if he wasn’t granting Sirius’s dearest wish.

“Back?” he checked, voice weak.

“The whole reason I hated hearing you talk about all these people you loved was because none of them were me,” Remus explained. He leaned forward, and Sirius found himself leaning in too, clearly pulled by some kind of witchcrafty magnetism. “What do you say, Sirius? Give me a chance to not fall out of love with you either?”

“That’s got to be the dumbest proposal I’ve ever heard,” one of the baristas commented, overloud in the silence Sirius had left.

“Yeah, well, it worked,” Sirius growled, flipping a vee in the general direction of the counter as he leaned across the table to kiss Remus soundly. The baristas applauded sarcastically, and Sirius saw Remus flip them a vee of his own. They really were going to be a great couple.

“Does this mean you’ll come back to the cafe?” Remus asked.

“Only if that’s not the only place I ever get to see you,” Sirius replied, gathering his things. The rain had let up, and he was very ready to never be in this cafe again.

“I think I can work with that,” Remus said with a smile as they both stood up from the table. “How about I take you on a proper date?”

“That sounds lovely,” Sirius murmured, reeling the taller man in for another kiss. “Just not right now.”

“What’s wrong with right now?” Remus protested, without leaving kissing range.

“You smell like terrible hot chocolate.”

Remus looked down at himself, apparently remembering his earlier spill.

“I suppose that is rather offputting,” he said wryly.

“A bit,” Sirius agreed, linking their arms and leading his love out of the shop. “But I still love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Most of this story was fully-formed during the 3:42 it took me to listen to Hozier's excellent song "Someone New," for which the fic is named. Then I was writing and for some reason decided to send Remus on a fellowship designed entirely from my own desires and not based on any real programs I know of. No other characters are named, and no real backstory is developed, because I wrote this entire fic in one three hour sitting and honestly have too much homework to allow myself to give it any more time. However, the coffee shop manager is probably Alice Longbottom, Remus's best friend is Lily, Sirius writes novels about magic in the modern world that aren't really bestsellers but have quite a cult following, and Remus is studying to get a master's in, like, zoology or animal conservation or something. They're probably in London but who can say, really? Also the shitty baristas aren't based on anyone real, so much as the way I wish I could've been sometimes when I worked food service.


End file.
